He raised his gun and pointed it at my chest. I screamed, but there was nothing I could do. No magic to stop the bullets this time. Lightning woke the sky and I glimpsed Alec, in wolf form, sprinting toward us, teeth bared in a snarl. The sound of gunshots was everywhere. Alec stumbled, maybe over a root or divot in the ground, and then the lightning passed and the sky went dark once more.
The man fired three rounds at my chest. I squeezed my eyes shut and clutched the book tighter, waiting for the pain to start.
But it didn’t start.
Maybe I was dead.
I cracked one eye and then the other. The guy gave his gun a strange look and then looked at me. I glanced down at my chest, expecting to see holes. Instead, magic swirled around me. No, around the book.
Well, that was new.
I glanced back up in time to watch the guy raise his aim to my head, the plonker. I yelped and lifted the book. The bullet bounced right off the book, or rather, off the magic surrounding it, and ricocheted into his leg. He screamed and went down.
As for me? I ran.
I felt his bullets whizzing through the air on either side of me, but I just ducked my head and kept running, too afraid to stop. I ran past houses, dodging clothing lines and lean-tos, until I hit the road. But I didn’t stop there. I ran until I was out of breath and my muscles ached and the stitch in my side felt like it would explode, and then I ran some more.
I ran until I hit the outskirts of Nouakchott. I was exhausted. I just wanted to collapse, but I needed to get out of the rain. The streets were mostly deserted, but mostly wasn’t near enough. A few people stood under awnings, watching me. I remembered Ryerson’s warning about walking alone and hugged the book tighter to my chest, trying not to freak out about, well, everything. Not for the first time, I wished I could just call Zoe. She could always talk me down. I might not be able to talk to her right now, but the second I got home I was telling her everything. Screw the CIA’s confidentiality agreements. After all, she was in spy school now too.
I quickened my pace, the quiet streets taking on a menacing air that the daylight had driven out. I spotted a public restroom and ducked inside. Once I had recovered enough to speak, I tucked the earpiece inside my ear and radioed Dahlia.
“Talk to me, handsome,” Dahlia said.
“Dahlia? It’s me. Um, Ainsley,” I clarified, just in case she had other women calling her from Ryerson’s line.
“Hey, Ains. Where’s Ryerson?”
“Yeah, about that …”
I relayed what had happened since we left Razak’s house as quickly as I could, leaving out the unimportant details, like how Alec had stolen the book from us, and how we’d used it to work a spell instead of bringing it straight back to the CIA.
“Wow,” she said when I’d finished. “Okay, give me a minute.”
I paced the small room to the sound of clacking keys, my mind wandering to Ryerson and Alec and Tiago. Were they okay? Had I just left them there to die? Should I have tried to help? Maybe I could have found a spell in the Grimoire. Maybe—
Fat lot of good a spell would have done you without your magic, the voice harrumphed.
True.
Thankfully, Dahlia came back on the line, saving me from my thoughts. “Okay, the safe house may be compromised, so I had to improvise. Here’s what you’re going to do …”
24
This is stupid, the voice grumped for the umpteenth time since we’d left Mauritania. You’ve had the Grimoire for nine hours and haven’t opened it once. Not once! What kind of witch are you anyway?
Here we go.
A good-for-nothing one, that’s what kind. If you don’t open it, you’ll regret it. Mark my words. I’ll conjure a horde of gremlins to pluck all the hairs from your body one by one, and then I’ll weave them into a rope and string you upside down and slice you until all the blood drains from your body, and then I’ll use it all to paint a mural of the look of horror on your face for all the world to see.
“Uh-huh.” Wait for it.
I didn’t mean that. You know I like you. Sort of. You’re, um, very pretty. And have straight-ish teeth. Will you pretty please open it?
I shook my head as I trudged up the stairs toward the apartment in Morocco that Dahlia had directed me to. Frankly, I would have opened the book hours ago if the voice hadn’t been so bloody excited about the idea. Call me crazy, but the thought of giving a murder-happy ghost witch exactly what she wanted made me nervous.
So instead, we’d argued about it for the last ten hours. From the narrow alleyways of Nouakchott, to the Mauritanian train station, and all during the train ride to Morocco, to the old apartment building with the broken elevator and the buzzing stairwell lights which Dahlia’s directions had led me to.
I had tried to explain to the voice that perusing an old spell book on a crowded train would draw attention we didn’t want and couldn’t afford, but lying is a lot harder when the person you’re trying to deceive lives in your head. And while I was worried about drawing attention, I was way more concerned about why the voice was so interested in the Grimoire. A question she’d so far refused to answer beyond a supercilious and less-than-helpful because it’s mine. I assumed it had something to do with the fact she was dead and unhappy about it, but it was impossible to say for sure because she admitted to nothing except wanting to look at the book. And ever since Mauritania, she’d bounced back and forth between threats and flattery in a nonstop diatribe that showed no signs of letting up.
A wide, jaw-popping yawn reminded me that apparently ghosts don’t sleep and with all the yammering, neither had I. Which wouldn’t have been so bad, except I also didn’t have enough magic left for a simple warming rune, which meant my clothes were still damp and stiff, and don’t even get me started on the chafing. Not to be left out, my stomach chimed in with a rumbling growl.
Today was the worst.
Quit your griping, the voice said.
Easy for you to say, I grumbled back. You’re dead.
That’s so rude. I prefer to think of myself as life challenged.
I rolled my eyes as I climbed the stairs, but she wasn’t wrong. Tired and cranky was no excuse for being rude. Besides, the truth was, I was grateful for the distractions. Because if I stopped thinking about them, if I let my mind wander to the darker place it kept veering toward, I’d wind up curled in a tight ball in a corner of the weird-smelling stairwell, unable to breathe past the tears clogging my throat.
Not that this had happened once already. In the tiny train bathroom. For thirty minutes.
Because I’d left them.
I’d just bloody left them.
Oh sweet goddess, are you going on about them again? the voice said, snapping me back to the present before I fell too far down that dark rabbit hole again.
They’ll be fine, I reminded myself sternly. They are highly trained CIA operatives. With a hellhound. A fickle, moody hellhound who only shows up when he feels like it, but still. They don’t need you to protect them, especially without your magic. They’ve been in worse scrapes than that long before you came along. Besides, there’s nothing you can do for them now, except protect the book.
Speaking of the book, the voice said in a singsong voice.
I sighed and stepped out of the stairwell on the fifth floor and dug in my pocket for the key Dahlia had promised would be taped under the vending machine in the building’s basement. She was right about the key, but she’d neglected to mention the spider the size of a baby dragon guarding it. Suffice it to say, Dahlia and I weren’t friends right now.
I unlocked the apartment door to reveal a room that looked like a crack house and a mousetrap had a studio-apartment-sized baby and scowled. The CIA should really spring for a luxury safe house one of these days. Maybe on a beach. With one of those fancy massage chairs. No one who knew anything about the agency’s weird obsession with dilapidated buildings would ever find it.
With a longing glance at the bed, I went to the clos
et. All I wanted to do was fling myself onto the questionable sheets and sleep for a week. Instead, I retrieved the Pampers box Dahlia had promised would be stashed on the closet shelf and hauled it onto the bed. I dug out the audio equipment inside and set it up just like Dahlia had instructed. Apparently, the earpiece and radio Alec had given me had a battery life that did not survive nine-hour train rides.
“Password?” Dahlia’s staticky voice said after I punched in the code she’d made me memorize.
“Seriously?”
“Password?” she said again.
I sighed. “Dahlia is a goddess, and we should all bow before her superior intellect and whimsically inventive fashion sense,” I recited dutifully and then added, “And I still don’t believe that’s a real password.”
“Of course it’s not. We don’t do passwords at the agency. Usually. But it’s still nice to hear.”
I sank back against the scarred headboard and muttered, “I’ll give you a password …”
“You’re in a mood. What’s wrong?”
Besides the fact I’d lost Ryerson and Alec and there was a ghost witch living in my head? “There was a spider under the vending machine.”
Silence.
“It was a really big spider,” I added, because she didn’t seem to be appreciating the gravity of the situation. “More like an eight-legged cat, really.”
“Suck it up, princess. I have good news.”
I perked up. “Ryerson checked in?”
“No. Not yet.”
It had been over ten hours. Surely he should have checked in by now. Something in my chest tightened, and I struggled to keep my voice even. “What does that mean?”
“It doesn’t mean anything. He gave you his radio, and he wouldn’t have returned to the safe house, just in case it was compromised. Protocol says he goes dark until he finds another secure check-in point.”
“How long will that take?” I didn’t like the idea of Ryerson, possibly hurt, roaming the desert. Alone. Or worse, with Alec.
Goddess, why did I leave them?
“Hard to say. Another day. Maybe more. Africa is a big continent, and frankly, the agency’s focus and resources are concentrated mainly in Europe and Asia. Most of the African check-in points we do have are clustered in the northern countries, though, so he’ll reach one eventually.”
“What about this safe house? Maybe he’ll show up here,” I said hopefully.
“Sure, if he knows about it. But I don’t show a record of him ever having used that one, and according to his file it’s not a location he’s been briefed on, so it’s doubtful.”
The invisible fist in my chest squeezed a little tighter.
“Don’t worry,” she said. “Ryerson is a good operative. One of our best. He’ll check in when he can and not a minute before that.”
I knew that, but it didn’t slow the lump of worry rising in my throat. I wished again that I could talk to Zoe, but my phone was tucked safely away in the pocket of my overnight bag, which was sitting on the bed back in the Mauritanian hotel, and as far as I could tell, the CIA’s radio only accepted codes, not phone numbers.
I rubbed a hand over my face, suddenly exhausted. “You said there was good news?”
“Yep. I found an operative who can swing by and pick up the book. He’s on his way. Should reach you in about six hours.”
Six hours. That wasn’t too bad.
“He’ll be alone. Try not to fry him.”
So Ryerson told them about that. Awesome. “Ha ha.”
“When he arrives, he’ll knock once, pause, and then three more in quick succession. Don’t open the door for anyone unless you hear that pattern, got it?”
“So the CIA thinks passwords are dumb, but it’s totally cool with secret knocks?”
“What can I say? We’re all about the whimsy around here.”
Right. “What should I do until then?”
“Watch TV. Practice your planking. Daydream about Jason Momoa. I don’t care. Just stay put.”
Stay put. I could do that.
“Just think,” she added, “by tomorrow, this will all be over. Try to stay out of trouble until then, yeah?”
“Yeah, okay.”
We signed off, and I packed the radio away then drudged up a stale energy bar someone had stashed in the fridge. Probably to keep the rats from eating it. I shuddered and sat heavily on the bed, waiting for the voice to pick up where it had left off now that it knew our time with the book was limited. Where were we? Oh yes, back to threats, I think.
You seem tired, it said instead. You should get some sleep.
I paused mid-chew, certain I’d heard it wrong. What?
You look terrible. There’s probably some dry clothes in that dresser over there. Why don’t you change into something warm and dry and get some sleep. I’ll let you know if anything interesting happens around here.
I wrinkled my nose, looking for the catch. Because there was definitely a catch. Oh, I get it. You wait until I’m warm and cozy and desperate for sleep, and then you promise to let me have it if I just do this teensy thing for you and open the book.
I’m a ghost, not a monster, dear.
Really? Because an hour ago you swore to spell your hands into claws and peel the skin from my bones in long ribbons that you would dye red with my blood and sell to little girls to braid into their hair.
Well, maybe I wouldn’t have if I’d known you were so sensitive. Look, if you don’t want to take me up on my offer of sleep, that’s perfectly fine with me. I have plenty of nagging left in me. Now where were we—
I let her ramble about whittling my bones into wind chimes and using my tendons as dental floss while I grabbed a quick shower, hung my stiff clothes on the room’s only chair to dry, and pulled on a T-shirt and sweatpants I found in the dresser. They were much too big, and I had to roll the pants at the waist so I could walk without tripping over the hems, but they were dry and that’s all that mattered.
Then? I tried to stay awake.
Because now that I wasn’t breaking into arms dealers’ homes and chasing rogue spies and generally running for my life, I was drop-dead exhausted. Come to think of it, besides a couple of catnaps on the plane and fainting at Aduna’s house, I hadn’t actually slept in days.
That’s true, said the voice. You should probably lie down.
I’m fine.
And I was. For the next thirty minutes. But there was no TV, and with nothing to do, fatigue began to drag at my limbs and settle like a thick fog in my head. I swayed on my feet.
Seriously, you’re going to collapse and hurt yourself, the voice said.
I yawned again and sat on the bed. Maybe she really was just being nice. I supposed stranger things had happened. I mean, none came to mind. And with the way my week was going, that was saying a lot.
The voice gave a dramatic sigh. Suspicious is not a good look for you, dear. But if you simply must know, you’ve been quite unpleasant to travel with today, and I’ve decided you may be in a more agreeable mood after you’ve slept. So get some sleep. I’ll wake you in five hours, and we can resume our discussion then.
No. I’ll be fine.
But my eyelids felt heavy. I just needed to close them. Just for a moment …
Sometime later, I woke to the sound of banging and a muttered curse in my head.
I jolted upright, blinking through a fog of sleep and trying to make sense of my surroundings. Crappy apartment. Grimoire open on the table in front of me. My wet clothes tossed on the floor in a heap. Right—the safe house in Morocco.
Hang on.
My gaze snapped back to the book open on the table in front of me. Yellowing pages. Black, curling script. A list of ingredients that included wormwood, dirt from each of the seven continents, and one “decidedly pleasant year” of the casting witch’s life. Yep, definitely the Grimoire.
Oh, broomsticks.
I scrambled away from the open Grimoire, only to topple backward in a chair I didn’t re
member sitting in. The chair smacked the floor and I tumbled out of it, head over heels.
Honestly, dear, the voice tutted. Do try to be more careful.
What did you do? I demanded.
I don’t know why you’re so huffy. You were asleep, after all.
And?
And since you weren’t using your body, I borrowed it for a few minutes.
My mouth dropped open. You can do that?
The voice gave the mental version of a shoulder shrug. The only thing stopping me from taking over your body right now is your force of will. When that will gets overridden by other things, like extreme emotion and sleep, I can do what I want.
I sat there, horrified. One thing was for sure: I was never sleeping again.
Don’t be so dramatic.
Another knock on the door saved the voice from the unintelligible scream of frustration rising in my throat. Tell you what, I said instead as I stomped to the door. The next time you’re possessed by a scheming ghost witch, you can lecture me about being dramatic.
My hand wrapped around the doorknob before Dahlia’s warning broke through the fog of anger swirling in my head.
The agent was supposed to use a coded knock.
I lifted my hand from the door and backed slowly away, icy fear sliding down my spine. On reflex, I called my magic, and to my surprise, it flowed easily into my hands, as ready and eager as if it had always been there, just waiting to be called. Relief flooded through me, and then a familiar, feminine voice drifted through the door, and the world came to a screeching halt.
“Ainsley? Open up!”
What are you doing? the voice said, alarmed. Think about this, witch …
But the voice was too late. I recognized the voice on the other side of that door. Two steps later I flung open the door and froze.
Because there, in the crappy hallway half a world away from home, stood Zoe.
25
Zoe was here. In Morocco.
And I had questions.
Like whether I had wished her into existence. That I’d wanted to talk to her so badly—about the CIA, about Ryerson, about Alec and The Kiss—that the universe was like, oh fiiine, here you go, just stop talking about it already.
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